If you live in a world where an electric pencil sharpener is "heavy machinery" then a tractor must be very scary. They're big, people do actual (physical) work with them....

I'm tempted to send her a ticket to this - http://www.farmmachineryshow.org/nfms/tractor_pull/tractor_pull.htm I bet she would be a lot of fun in "the pit".

I absolutely love CAT equipment...especially the 'tractors' which are really nomenclature for bulldozers.
I really thought 4WD trucks were fun, until I drove a D10 up a 70 foot embankment, and it's all done with fingertip controls now..very much fun, but you need a lot of room without pesky buildings and such around.

I know better (well, maybe not that early in the day*) and I also got sidetracked by a commercial for the tractor show. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that they are all giant metal death-beasts.

*I'm not fully functional until at least mid-afternoon...and that's on a good day.

"Watching the chaos below, Bush looked out the tractor's window and laughed..."

I believe the word she was looking for was "cackled".

That D10 does what, 3 MPH at most? I'll bet she had time to microwave some popcorn before she watched her life flash before her eyes.

Hey don't forget, there's only 42 shopping days remaining until St. Pancake Day!

"White House aides tried to herd the reporters the right way without getting run over themselves."

Just a suggestion for next time: 'cattle prods'...
The added stun effect will leave them easy pickings and W will have a historic photo opportunity that will rank as one of the best ever Kodak moments. Even Chaney will be impressed. ;p

I don't think it's very funny....sombody could have choked on their Altoid. :0

That W didn't run over the lot of them proves he's got the restraint of angels.

".sombody could have choked on their Altoid. :0"..

you mean like Pelosi almost did during the Satire of the Union address ???

I think we've found the snarky adolescent who writes the "Conventional Wisdom" section for Newsweek.

I love the blog that you have. I was wondering if you would link my blog to yours and in return I would do the same for your blog. If you want to, my site name is American Legends and the URL is:

http://www.americanlegends.blogspot.com

If you want to do this just go to my blog and in one of the comments just write your blog name and the URL and I will add it to my site.

Thanks,
Mark

Snarky. I love that word. It's the adjective I would use for that little guy in Mad Magazine.
Csason, btw, I liked the video of you playing. I showed my husband because he's a musician too, and builds guitars as well.
Don't laugh, but I had to ask him how you changed chords without fingers. I didn't know..(!)

George W. Bush: here is a man with the proven skill and ability to not only fly a jet aircraft, but to land one on the pitching deck of a carrier.

Nobody can tell me that he couldn't -- very easily, had he felt like it -- mowed down a couple of of esteemed members of the Fifth Estate with a bulldozer. Who could blame him? It's not like he needs to be worried about his chances of re-election.

Now, what I would do, if I were the Whitehouse Press Secretary, is start inviting more of these dedicated muck-raking newshounds to "photo-ops" at such places as taser warehouses and kung-fu throwing-star factories.

That would really give them something to write about. Time to get all presidential on their asses!

P.S. csason: Sorry to hear about your fingers. You are an inspiration to us all.

Off topic, continuing an earlier discussion:

The debate on global warming is over. (Time)

That's the ultimate message from the report released in Paris today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. body of leading researchers charged with analyzing climate science and producing the final word on what is happening — and will happen — to our planet. IPCC scientists now say that it is "very likely" that global warming is chiefly driven by the buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases caused by human activity, and that dangerous levels of warming and sea rise are on the way.

Those two words — the product of 2,500 scientists, 130 nations and 6 years of work — translates into a certainty of over 90%, up from the 66% to 90% chance the panel reported in its last major climate change assessment in 2001. That might not seem like a big difference, but in science, especially in a field as rapidly developing as climate studies, 90% is as good as it gets.

To Peter Off-topic:

I believe the report has not been released yet. What has been released is the official summary. Based on previous reports of this type, especially from the U.N., the body of the report will contain numerous caveats and assumptions, rendering the summary conclusions debatable.

Where is our Cracker? Is she all right?

Chris,
any prediction of the future is by definition debatable.
The fact that this is "the product of 2,500 scientists, 130 nations and 6 years of work" does, in my book, gives the study some credibility.

Moreover, it is the ones that maintain that the climate change is not man made (fast dwindling in numbers), that have a motive, not the other way round.

I don't believe Europeans are more stupid than Americans. Here the debate is pretty much over. My prediction is that it will soon be over on your side of the ocean too.
Respectfully,
Peter

"The fact that this is "the product of 2,500 scientists, 130 nations and 6 years of work" does, in my book, gives the study some credibility."

So, popularity = credibility?

Since when did science become a democracy?

At one time the unanimously held perception among the greatest thinkers of the day, was that the Sun revolved around the Earth. So, by your reckoning, that would have been an extremely credible theory.

Good luck with that.

I am with you, Willard, I emailed her but no response..

Where is Donnah ???

Perhaps she's at a big Superbowl party?
Unlike the rest of us LOOOOOOOOOOSERS.

RG, you prove my point. Once someone came up with the idea that the earth circles the sun, gradually the scientists of the day (well, it took years) adapted that understanding. Same process here. The general scientific view has over the decades shifted from nonsense to not impossible to perhaps to likely to now very likely. If that is supported by many after research that took many years, I don't see what that has to do with popularity or democracy. It's more a matter of 'if it looks, sounds, smells and actslike a cow, it's probably a cow'.

Donnnah, come back before I convince your disciples :)

at least more stylish than most safety glasses

I've worked in factories as an assembler and other such things, and I was a well paid, entry level, tech on various complex machinery. I had to wear saftety glasses almost the entire time I was actually performing maintenance.

Sometimes my eyewear was less than flattering, only because I didn't have the choice at the time, but sometimes I was well prepared, knowing what was necessary for my own safety, and I chose something that was comfortable in feel and style and they actually made it easier for me to focus on my job.

I guess this rotten broad never faced anything more dangerous than a typewriter in her life, and assumes that the "myth" of the railman who gets the big arms, and strong back from his work, is just a facade built on the ideal of the 1 hour a day journalistic sugardaddy who gets to spend 4 hours at the gym, rather than actually being in a manly profession.

Really, can someone set this broad on fire? or better yet, freeze her, I wanna be eco-friendly.

Also I had a lot of links in there for rather stylish (and EFF stylish) safety glasses that are also VERY comfortable. Cuz another thing this broad doesn't understand that people actually have to do something ALL EFFING DAY, and by ALL EFFING DAY, I don't mean "to earn your living" but rather as in "TO NOT LOSE YOUR LIFE ON An 8 or 12 or 16 hour shift." kinda of ALL EFFING DAY sort of way.

Friggen I don't care if she was concieved in an empty railcar, and born in the back of a cadillac on the way to her mothers next john, she has forgotten, or never knew what real people go through.

Oh, and people who like comfortable eyewear saftey, this is my favorite spot.(just in case florida still blocks links)

http://www.mcrsafety.com/glasses/index.html

You know donna? even if you refuse links, you should still have them e-mailed to a pure blog e-mail account, just so that you could approve them.

As we say in the oil and gas industry -- you can always tell who the rig hands are. They're the ones with the tinted safety glasses to hide their dilated pupils. Kidding!

But that's quite a fetching collection of eyewear featured on that web page. The names of the various models are intriguing. I particularly like the "Deuce". If John Shaft were my highschool shop teacher, he would have worn those.

"So, you're making a tea trivet for your mom. Solid."

And what's up with the "Desperado"? What kind of rebel outlaw and rogue wears safety glasses?! The kind of bad ass dude who knows that worker injuries reduce productivity -- that's what kind.

Don't even get me started on the "Frostbite" model. I've had frostbite, and take it from me, unless you can set them on fire for warmth, safety glasses don't help. They might as well have called them "Athele's Foot".

We should make a list of names for safety glasses to submit to that site. Some my suggestions:

- Cagey Spaniard
- Cabrone
- Fist Magnet
- El Bastardo
- The Metrosexual